Monday, 2 January 2012

The Ides of Mr Clooney

One might wish that more on-screen time was given to Paul
Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The
Ides of March – the latest flick brought to us by the Hollywood mogul Gorge
Clooney. Knowing how much potential the film has with the quad of male leads it
is a little disappointing that the story focuses almost exclusively on the
Clooney-Gosling duo. But that’s the consequence of following almost word by
word the play Farragut North on which
the screenplay to The Ides was based.

Truth be told, the film is enjoyable through most of its duration, mostly
because of its nicely done editing and clear, yet conventional aesthetics. There
is unfortunately less excitement in the storyline department. The first half of
the film feels like one long sequence taken out of an HBO drama. It has some
very promising stylistic features and as it moves at its considerably slow
pace, it feels as if it may have been building up to something grand. But for a
feature film which The Ides of March is,
the flick runs out of steam pretty quickly. In addition to that, the twist
which drives the second half of the narrative is both predictable and
underwhelming.

I was reminded of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanours as the film was heading towards its
climax. An affair with a young woman and its moral as well as pragmatic consequences
is the driving force for both films. But while Woody Allen shapes his storyline
attempting to find out what is the purpose of guilt in our lives, Clooney stops
at asking a faint and clichéd, “are human beings moral?” Stephen Meyers
(Gosling) compromises his integrity for a career in politics, while Governor
Mike Morris (Clooney) reinforces his unethical act of adultery by making
unscrupulous arrangements with Meyers.
The matter of guilt does not even enter the universe in which Meyers and Morris
rival their male egos, and perhaps the lack of that aspect of consciousness in
both men’s thinking is the director’s way of bluntly stating that politics is a
game only for those who are able to silence their consciousness. But if so, the
film falls into its own intellectual trap, as for anyone who has even the
slightest idea about the world in general, such an assumption about politics is
a no-brainer.

Even if we are to speak strictly about The Ides’ relevance to
other films, we are to discover that the
same theme was discussed in almost all political dramas, beginning with the
all-time classic Mr Smith Goes to
Washington, ending with Good Night
and Good Luck, or more recently, Lions
for Lambs.

The last scene of the film in which Stephen Meyers is about
to give an interview, leaves us with the man staring directly into the camera.
The mechanism of an open ending has its use in a variety of genres, but in case
of The Ides of March feels completely out of place. It seems to be regarded as
a mysterious and exciting way to finish the film, assuming that the audience
will wonder over the meaning of that last glance. Instead, the ending feels
rushed and inconclusive, as if Clooney did not quite know what else to add. Interestingly
enough Clooney might have proven something that he did not intend – that films
themselves are very much like politicians. With its amount of Golden Globes’
nominations and the potential success at the Oscars, one can only compare The
Ides of March to Clooney’s character, Governor Morris. Similarly to Governor’s
political campaign, the film’s true tour de force is its marketing promotion. Will
it be enough to grant Mr Clooney the grand prize?